Scouting Values In the Scriptures – Joshua

This is the latest installment of the “Scouting Values in Scriptures” weekly series. We are diving into the Old Testament and will continue with other scriptures of the Standard Works.

The Scout Law is 116 years old.

Scouting America was founded in 1910. The Scout Oath and Law were formalized in 1911.

Every single value in the Scout Law – every one of those 12 points – was already ancient by then.

Trustworthy. Loyal. Helpful. Friendly. Courteous. Kind. Obedient. Cheerful. Thrifty. Brave. Clean. Reverent.

They didn’t originate with Scouting. They didn’t originate with the Restoration. They didn’t even originate with the New Testament.

These are the oldest virtues in scripture. And the Old Testament is full of people who lived them – or failed to, and learned from failing – thousands of years before anyone thought to write them in a Scout handbook.

The Old Testament is honest about what human character actually costs. Its heroes aren’t polished. They’re people who wrestled – sometimes literally with God – through fear and failure and hard terrain, and came out shaped by it.

That’s what Scouting does to young people too. Let’s look at where they meet.

A Scout Is Brave: Joshua

After Moses died, the Lord turned to Joshua with a single charge. Not a detailed plan. Not a guarantee of easy victory. Just this:

“Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” (Joshua 1:9)

3 times in the first chapter of Joshua, the Lord says some version of the same thing: be strong and courageous. 3 times – because Joshua needed to hear it more than once. Because the task ahead was genuinely terrifying. Because courage is not a natural condition. It’s a chosen one.

Joshua’s bravery wasn’t reckless. He had spent 40 years watching the wilderness wipe out an entire generation of Israelites who didn’t believe God’s promises were real. He was one of the only 2 spies who came back from Canaan telling the truth, while the other 10 brought a discouraging report. He had watched courage fail in the people around him for 4 decades.

And when his moment came, he went anyway.

A Scout is Brave – “A Scout can face danger even if he is afraid. He has the courage to stand for what he thinks is right even if others laugh at him or threaten him.”

Joshua’s courage wasn’t the absence of fear. It was the decision – made deliberately, in full view of everything that could go wrong – to keep going because God had said to go.

Every Scout who takes the first step on a difficult trail, who leads their patrol through a crisis they didn’t expect, who stands alone when the group is going the wrong direction – that Scout is practicing the Joshua principle. Fear is normal. Courage is the choice you make in the presence of it.

Join us here next week for the next installment of “Scouting Values in the Scriptures”